64 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



needs more nourishment, cabbage, for instance, or 

 wheat, rye, or flax. Some things should be sown 

 with a view^ not so much to present profit as to 

 next year's crop, because when cut down and left 

 there they improve the soil. Thus lupins, before 

 they produce many pods — and sometimes bean- 

 stalks, if the podding stage be not so far advanced 

 that it is profitable to pull the beans — are usually 

 ploughed into poor land for manure. 



4 We must not either, when we come to plant, 

 neglect the claims of those things which bring profit 

 through the pleasure they afford, as, for example, 

 what are called "orchards " and " flower gardens"; 

 or again of those things which, without contribut- 

 ing to man's food or appealing to his perception of, 

 and pleasure in the beautiful are yet inseparable from 

 the productiveness of the farm. So you must choose 



5 a place suitable for beds of willows and reeds and 

 other plants which require moisture, and, on the 

 other hand, a place for corn crops, and especially for 

 beans and other things also which suit a dry dis- 

 trict. In the same way you must sow some things 

 where there is shade, as, for instance, wild aspara- 

 gus,^ because the cultivated variety (which the wild 



1 Prospicientem. In Imitation of the common Greek con- 

 struction, (TTrapreov tan . . . airoaKOiTovvTa. 



^ Corruda seems to be wild asparagus. Cf. Cato, R. R., 

 vi, 3: Ibi corrudam serito unde asparagi fiant\ and Pliny, 

 N. H., xix, 8: Fndicavimus et corrudam. Hunc enim intellego 

 silvestrem asparagum. Pliny also states that corruda becomes 

 asparagus. 



